


Bite-sized and bleeding

by Ellen Smithee (ellensmithee), pleasebekidding, saltzatore



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Compulsion, Digital Art, Drabble Collection, Dubious Consent, F/M, Family, Family Drama, Gen, M/M, Magic, Murder, Prompt Art, Prompt Fic, Slash, Torture, Vampire Turning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-13
Updated: 2012-03-13
Packaged: 2017-11-01 21:40:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 28
Words: 12,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/361560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellensmithee/pseuds/Ellen%20Smithee, https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleasebekidding/pseuds/pleasebekidding, https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltzatore/pseuds/saltzatore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We three queens - PleaseBeKidding, EllenSmithee and Saltzatore - held our own little prompt-fest in February. We each selected 10 prompts and then randomized them, so we each completed a prompt every three days for the month February 1 – March 1.</p><p>You can use the chapter index if you are looking for specific pairings. Otherwise, just enjoy – there will be some surprises here! Do yourself a favour and skip the warnings, let yourself be surprised!</p><p>Drabbles range in length up to about 1500 words.</p><p>Please comment on the page you are commenting about.</p><p>Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries doesn't belong to us. If it did, it would be a lot less het.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. (Stefan/Klaus + Elena) Here she comes, it’s killing time, flames are burning behind her eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By PleaseBeKidding - prompt by EllenSmithee
> 
> Title from The truth is in the dirt by Karen Elson

Elena, huddled in the corner. Streaked in blood from head to toe. Klaus and Stefan lazy on the bed, sweaty sheets pooled around their hips.

Watching Elena twitch, Stefan turns to his lover, bites him on the shoulder. Draws blood, draws Klaus’ attention.

“Did you know?”

Klaus says nothing, turning back to watch the death-throes. Elena’s matching bra and panties look like something from a Hollywood slasher film. Chaste white, once. Not now. Her dark hair is heavy with blood.

Stefan bites again, and again draws blood. Again watches as the wound heals below his lips. “Did you know?” he repeats. “Or even guess? That she’d be so... special?”

Klaus shrugs, quirks his too-red, sugar-coated lips into a grin, tugging at Stefan’s pubic hair lazily. “Might have had an inkling, mate. You can never be certain. I hoped. There’s something of Rebekah in that one.” Klaus watches as Elena stands slowly, limbs languid, turning to face the bed again.

“Are the ones you give me half empty?” She sighs. Steps on the face of a man she vaguely recognises from the kitchen at the Grill, dead and bloody in a heap at her feet. Rolls his head under her heel for a moment until she seems to lose interest, crosses her arms over her chest and pouts. “I’ve had _five_ and I’m _still_ hungry. The last one didn’t even _scream_.” Elena narrows her eyes in irritation. “I like it better when they scream.” Petrova fire in her eyes, in the blackened capillaries surrounding them.

“You can make them scream, darling. Compel them to, if it amuses you.” Klaus beckons Elena to his side, a smile teasing at his lips, and she rolls her eyes but dances across the room to leap onto the bed and straddle his lap. “Look at you, sweetheart, you have blood on your chin,” he says, wiping a lazy tongue over the drips. If it’s a necessary gesture, it’s one Klaus will have to repeat from her eyelids to her toes - and he’ll probably do it, before the night is over. He and Stefan both.

Once Elena’s finally drunk her fill.

Elena climbs over Klaus’ body and leans to sink her fangs into Stefan’s thigh. He winces a second and then smiles, tracing her lips with a finger.

“She’s a ripper, alright,” Klaus says, pleased as punch, vicious glint in his eye. He watches as Elena sinks her fangs into Stefan for the second time, just above his groin, this time, and laps at the blood that runs in rivulets and pools in his crotch. “My little doppelganger. My Elena.” Strokes her bloody, matted curls, admires the fire in her eyes and imagines, with malicious glee, the hedonism and carnage of the next thousand years.

“ _Our_ Elena,” Stefan insists, quirking his lips as he drags her to him for a ferocious kiss, and the world is as it should be.


	2. (Damon/Elijah) Not sorry enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By EllenSmithee - prompt by PleaseBeKidding

Damon's been here before, in this chair, or one very like it. His hands and feet are bound to the arms and legs of the chair with vervain-soaked ropes, and there are wooden spikes again—only this time they're in his chest, four of them, one on each side. He draws in a deep breath, wincing at the hollow rattle. At least one of his lungs is punctured, and maybe his spleen. As his eyes grow accustomed to the dim light, he realizes he's in the dining room of Klaus's mansion. His powers are weak from the loss of blood and vervain, but they're still strong enough for him to sense that he's not alone. He tenses as the instinct to run, to escape, kicks in, but a familiar voice stays him.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. If you move even a fraction of an inch, in any direction, one of the stakes will puncture your heart."

Damon follows the direction of the voice to find Elijah crouched down by the fire, thrusting a poker into the embers. He clenches his fists to keep from moving as he imagines what Elijah is going to do with it. Damon forces himself to breathe evenly through his nostrils, determined not to show his fear. 

"I told you not to go against my orders for our little 'operation,' Damon. I told you I'd make you sorry." Elijah's manner seems to suggest a pleasant afternoon's tea, not the evening of torture he seems to have planned. "But once again, you wouldn't listen to me. You almost ruined my plan."

"Okay, then, I _am_ sorry," Damon says, his tone as light as he can make it. The words are like sawdust in his mouth, dry and suffocating— _Damon Salvatore does_ not _apologize, ever—_ andhe forces himself to smile despite the pain radiating from the stakes. "I'll never do it again, promise. You can let me go now."

Elijah just shakes his head. "That was too easy," he said. "Too fast. Too glib. You didn't mean it, Damon. You are not sorry enough."

Damon tenses again as Elijah rises, bracing himself for the inevitable sear of hot metal in his flesh, only to relax again when Elijah merely puts the poker back in its stand. But then Elijah turns, and the look on his face makes Damon's stomach churn.

All false bravado, the smile still in place, Damon says, "You can let me go now," as Elijah approaches. Damon's nails are digging into his palms, so hard they are growing slick from blood. "I get the point."

Elijah reaches the chair then, and he puts his hands over the ropes, pressing them into Damon's wrists as he puts his weight on them. Damon grimaces at the white hot burn of the vervain on his skin and only just manages not to cry out. Elijah leans forward until his face is just inches from Damon's.

"I don't think you do," he says. "I think a little demonstration is in order. You need to prove that you are able to do as I say, when I say it."

Damon's eyes narrows. "Yeah, well, see? That's the problem right there. I don't take orders from anyone. Not even you." _Especially not you._ "Nothing personal."

Despite his cocky grin, Damon flinches when Elijah raises his hand, expecting the other man to strike him, but instead Elijah cups Damon's cheek. Elijah's lips twitch as he observes Damon's discomfort.

"Maybe it's about time you learn then," Elijah says, running his thumb over Damon's cheekbone. The gesture is almost tender, but before Damon can wonder about it, Elijah withdraws his hand.

Despite Elijah's warning, Damon coughs, forcing blood out of his lungs, and the bitter, metallic taste grounds him, the wounds from the stakes receding to a dull pain. Elijah leans forward again, his tongue darting out to gather the drops of blood clinging to Damon's lips, and Damon lets out an involuntary moan. His head follows as Elijah pulls away, but Elijah stops him, laying his hand on the back of Damon's neck.

"I said, 'Don't move.' This is important, Damon."

Damon fights his rising annoyance—as if the stakes don't already fucking remind him that he could _die_ at any second. "Fine," he hisses through clenched teeth and there's that amused look again, just a faint crinkling around Elijah's eyes. Then Elijah's hand is on Damon's belt buckle and _oh fuck_.

Damon panics as he realizes Elijah's intent and he starts to pull away, freezing when one of the stakes shifts. He closes his eyes and breathes evenly again, forcing himself to calm down. In the meantime, Elijah's hand is already undoing Damon's fly, his knuckles pressing against Damon's cock with each button his deft fingers flick open. He chuckles softly when he finds Damon's prick already hard and leaking precome.

"You really are a little slut, aren't you, Damon?" he says, more of a statement than a question.

"Fuck you," Damon snarls, but then Elijah is stroking him and it takes all of Damon's concentration not to just _go_ with it.

"Oh, I'm not the one getting fucked here."

The dirty word seems even dirtier in Elijah's cultured voice, and that makes Damon even harder. Elijah's hand is on his cock, his touch, now soft, now firm, his speed, now fast, now slow, is _just right_. If Damon could think more clearly, he'd wonder how Elijah knows how to touch him _just the way he needs it_ , but he has other things to worry about right now, like how to stay _fucking motionless_ during what he's certain is the best handjob of his life. The heady of mix of pleasure and pain is almost impossible to bear, but just as he's right on the edge, Elijah stops.

"You… fucking bastard!" Damon stares at Elijah in disbelief through bleary eyes. "What the—"

"Don't come until I say you can."

Damon digs his teeth into his lower lip, just forming an 'f' sound, when he catches Elijah's eye. Damon snarls, but closes his eyes. Elijah's hand is still on the back of his neck, steadying him, and Damon focuses on its weight, the gentle rubbing of Elijah's thumb over his nape, and it calms him.

And then Elijah's touching him again, and it's _perfect._ He's not sure how much longer he can hold out, but he isn't going to let Elijah best him again, not tonight. Whatever Elijah can dish out, Damon Salvatore can take.

Suddenly, Elijah stops, his hand squeezing Damon's cock just so.

"Come now, Damon."

Before Damon's even conscious of it, he's spilling into Elijah's hand, sobbing in relief as the orgasm shakes his body.

"Very good," Elijah murmurs, holding Damon, keeping him safe from the stakes until Damon is spent.

Finally, Elijah wipes his hand off on Damon's pants legs and then straightens up. Damon hears a series of clicks and then the stakes are moving, gliding out of his torso. He sags in relief, barely cognizant as Elijah cuts the ropes and presses a bag of blood into Damon's hand. Then Elijah turns and strides away, looking back only when he reaches the doorway.

"You can let yourself out," he says and then he's gone.

Damon tries to rise from the chair, but his legs give out, and he falls back, his eyes falling closed as he suckles on the bag. Elijah was right. Damon is totally fucked.


	3. (Damon/Alaric) It was different with us (Art post)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by Saltzatore - prompt by PleaseBeKidding

*Art post* 

 


	4. (Damon/Alaric) Man of constant sorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By pleasbekidding – prompt by EllenSmithee
> 
> Title from Man of constant sorrow (traditional)

As a child, Damon was not the favoured son, despite his best behaviour, his hard work, the lengths he went to, just to try to be enough in his father’s eyes. By the fourteenth summer spent seeking some similarity between his father’s face and his own, and finding none, he began to believe there was a reason why no amount of obedience would ever see him equal to his brother, where his father was concerned.

Still, it made it easier to walk away from the war because the shame he brought on Giuseppe Salvatore was not the shame a son could bring upon his father; just the shame a foundling might bring upon the head of the household.

(Damon wondered, sometimes, after Stefan killed Giuseppe, whether Giuseppe’s final moments were spent regretting having placed his trust in the wrong ‘son’.)

Damon believed he was the favoured brother at least where Katherine was concerned. Stefan was a slip of a boy. Damon was a man, knew how to make Katherine moan. The first time she showed Damon her true face he didn’t run – licked into her mouth, tearing his tongue on her exquisitely pointed teeth.

Still she preferred Stefan. He began to suspect this back in 1864 and tucked it away in his heart like a cyanide pill, and the confirmation of this fact in 2010 ached no worse than a series of stakes in the gut. He rode the aftershocks like he rode them all, with blood and sex and taking everything he wanted; and a few things he didn’t particularly want, but thought he might as well have.

(Damon wondered, sometimes, after Katherine so spectacularly struck out with Stefan, after she learned that Damon had moved heaven and earth to free her, whether she had ever regretted her choice. He suspected not.)

Her many-times-great granddaughter gazed on Damon’s lips more frequently than was proper but when he called her on it, Elena stood straight and tall and insisted she, too, loved only Stefan. He smiled and murdered her brother but was relieved when Jeremy woke up hale and whole.

Damon could bear to be the man never preferred, but he didn’t want to be hated. He was too fucking lonely to bear it.

(Damon would have spent years wondering about Elena’s regrets if he had not been distracted only a little time later.)

 

Over the years Damon learned how to be preferred, for a little while at a time. Found beautiful strangers in strange bars and dark hamlets. Compelled their love, compelled their compliance and their adoration. Compelled them to open under him like flowers, sometimes for a few days, sometimes for a few hours. Sometimes he made them promise they liked him better than Stefan, made them believe they really did. The fact these beauties had never met Stefan meant nothing under compulsion.

Sometimes Damon believed them.

 

Damon met a beautiful stranger in a bar and wanted to keep him right away. Wanted to keep him for a whole weekend, maybe a whole week. Used his slate-silver eyes to compel him to stay, and was shocked when the stranger, head cocked to the side, asked if Damon had something in his eye.

Was doubly shocked when the stranger brushed a soft kiss across Damon’s lips for the first time. Was triply shocked the first time he opened under Damon’s hands and fingers and tongue instead of the strange power of his monstrous eyes.

Damon prayed he’d never have to wonder if Alaric regretted anything at all.

 

**

 

Damon spends a morning in quiet contemplation of these facts, with bed sheets rumpled and a little torn from the previous night’s enthusiasms pooled around his waist, and casts an easy glance at the sleeping form beside him, the richly muscled arms and heavily stubbled jaw. When those eyes open, he knows the mouth will turn up at the corners, and a powerful arm will reach across Damon’s waist to pull him down for the first kiss of the day.

Preferred at last, Damon plans never to let Alaric go.


	5. (Alaric/Elena) Shattered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By EllenSmithee — prompt by PleaseBeKidding

_love and hope and sex and dreams..._

 

Alaric moves inside her, his thrusts pushing her into the mattress. She moans, her fingers curling into claws as she yearns to dig her nails into him, but his grip on her wrists is too tight, too hard. She tightens her thighs around his hips and moans and he growls, his whole body stiffening.

"Elena," he breathes, and then he dips his head. She cries out, surprised, as he drives his fangs into her throat, hurting at first, but soon the sheer ecstasy from the endorphins takes over and she's tumbling over the edge, just barely aware of Alaric coming as well. Instead of stopping, however, he continues sucking at the wound on her neck, ignore her cries and struggles until she grows weaker and finally goes still, drained.

 

When Katherine awakes, Alaric is gone, a bag of blood lying on the pillow next to her in his stead. She shrugs to herself as she bites into the plastic. She'd almost forgotten the date. It's the anniversary of Elena's death—the anniversary of the night Alaric killed her.

 


	6. (Damon/Alaric + Stefan) Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By Saltzatore — prompt by Saltzatore

The first thing he sees upon entering the front door is the ring. It's lying on top of Alaric’s jacket that someone has dropped in the middle of the hallway.

 

He hesitates, for just a moment, doesn’t want to go further, doesn’t want to find out what that means…

 

The living room is silent. There’s a fire burning brightly in the fire-place, wood crackling softly in the quiet. A still figure on the floor, head turned toward the couch, one arm flung outward, toward a stake that’s just out of reach, the other cradled against a not-moving chest.

 

Alaric’s eyes are open, unseeing.

 

Dead.

 

Damon freezes in the open door—and his eyes meet Stefan’s. His brother is sitting on the couch, sipping from a glass of Scotch. His legs are stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, shoes resting on Alaric’s thigh. Stefan watches him for a moment, then raises his glass in a silent toast. Grins.

 

Stefan never says a word, just stands up and places the glass on the table next to the couch.

 

And leaves.

 

Damon sinks to the ground, next to the lifeless form, defeated. He looks at the still body, tries to recall Alaric’s voice, the grin in his eyes, the growl in his voice, the warmth of his skin. Has no energy left to be angry. Or sad.

 

Or anything.

 

Something hits him on the side of his head and falls into his lap.

 

A blood bag.

 

Stefan’s voice comes from the hallway.

 

“He’ll need that, when he wakes up.”

 

Alaric’s hand twitches.

 

"Happy birthday, Damon."

 

 


	7. (Damon/Alaric) Affection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By PleaseBeKidding - prompt by Saltzatore

Ben loves Alaric, and that’s his curse. They’ve known each other since high school, when they were the tallest in the year, always side by side in any group portrait. Back then, as boys, they were all knees and elbows, scrutinising one another’s chins and cheeks for evidence of facial hair. Best friends forever.

Every time Alaric starts seeing someone new, Ben puts on a brave face, punches his arm, calls him a dog. Speculates obscenely about what happens between the sheets, and dies a little death inside. Every time a relationship ends, he starts to hope again.

Ben used to think the day he was Best Man at Alaric and Isobel’s wedding was the worst of his life, but he was wrong. Every day since then, watching them together, his heart breaks again.

Alaric Saltzman is the most affectionate man Ben Alder has ever known, and Isobel… is prickly.

She doesn’t like to be touched.

Ben watches Alaric and Isobel walk away from the bar they have all been drinking in, watches Alaric take her hand to walk down the street. She gives it a quick squeeze and then takes her hand back, puts it in her pocket.

Isobel is sitting at her desk. Ben sees Alaric put his hands on her shoulders and give her a little rub, and Isobel shrugs him off with a bright, sweet smile.

Ben sees Alaric reach across a dining table to place his hand on Isobel’s. She pretends she hasn’t noticed and pulls away before he can touch her.

Every day Alaric’s smile is a little shallower, his eyes a little more haunted.

Ben loves Alaric, but it is Isobel who breaks his heart.

 

 

Stefan decides one day that the worst thing about vampire rehab isn’t picking animal fur from between his teeth. It isn’t the fact that he’s not allowed to be alone in a room with Elena. It isn’t the mind-numbing boredom.

It’s living with Damon and Alaric.

Stefan’s full-time job is brooding, but brooding alone in his room is turning him back into a crazy person. Unfortunately brooding anywhere else in the house means being constantly confronted with Damon and Alaric.

If not for Elena, Stefan would burn Mystic Falls to the ground, drink the townsfolk dry, go chasing after Katherine.

If not for Alaric, Damon might go with him. The thought makes Stefan slump lower in his chair.

Damon has been a prickly, sociopathic dick for the last hundred and fifty years, fuelled by obsession and rage. For years, Stefan has missed the Damon that Damon had been before Stefan forced him to become a vampire. _That_ Damon – sweet, affectionate, loyal – of all the people to bring it back out of him, who would have picked a vampire-hunting history teacher?

Stefan sees Damon trail his fingers across Alaric’s shoulders, sees Alaric lean into the touch just slightly, with a twitch of his eyebrows and a half smile.

Stefan sees Damon sit at one end of the couch with his feet in Alaric’s lap, both men reading, and Alaric circles Damon’s ankles with his big hands, possessive and possessed.

Stefan sees everything, so he even sees the way Damon almost unconsciously runs his fingers over the inside of Alaric’s wrist a few times a day, taking his pulse, and the way Alaric stills, letting him. Those big, warm, dark eyes sparkling at Damon’s odd quirk.

Every day, Damon’s eyes are brighter, his step lighter.

Stefan drove this Damon away, and Alaric brought him back.

 

 


	8. (Damon/Alaric) Hold me, thrill me, kiss me, kill me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By EllenSmithee, prompt by Saltzatore
> 
> Title from Hold me, thrill me, kiss me, kill me by U2

 

Damon's arms around him are strong and Alaric feels safe. He could stay like this forever, he thinks. Damon holding him is all he needs.

 

Then Damon is touching him, just the way Alaric likes, his hand skating down Alaric's sides, stroking his cock. Damon moves within him, a little to fast, a little too hard, a little too… mean.

 

Before Alaric can protest, Damon's lips are on his, soothing, coaxing, and everything is right again—until he feels Damon's hand on his throat, pressing tighter and tighter.

 

Just as life is sliding out of his reach, the compulsion slips and he finds himself gazing into Klaus's cruel, cold eyes. And then nothing.

 


	9. (Damon/Alaric/Elijah) I will be the one to gaze on you, discreetly (Art post)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by Saltzatore, prompt by PleaseBeKidding
> 
> Title from The Ladder by Andrew Belle

*Art post*


	10. (The Mikaelsons) You owe me some kind of love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By PleaseBeKidding, prompt by EllenSmithee
> 
> Title from You owe me some kind of love by Chris Isaak

Five sets of hostile eyes and beneath them Klaus quivers. The Halfling, the rotten egg.

Rebekah is the first to turn away. Drapes her arm across Kol’s shoulders. Kol was her favourite. Klaus thought it was him, but no, he sees Rebekah’s strong arm pull Kol closer, as they turn away, sweeping through the mansion to restart their lives.

“Have a nice life, Nik,” she says airily over her shoulder. “And a short one, if you can manage it.”

Finn growls. Never trusted Klaus, never liked him. Smelled the difference that poured off him in waves. Finn is monstrous, calmed only by the ministrations of his mother’s touch over his back and shoulders. She’ll teach him to walk in the world. Esther turns to Klaus, her expression cold and unfathomable.

“You’ll be alone, in all of this, now, Niklaus,” and the way she says it makes it sound less like a prediction than a curse. She nods, whispers old Norse words of comfort in her eldest son’s ear and begins to lead him gently away.

Finn is reluctant, curls his hands into claws, still watching Klaus with eyes so wide Klaus can see the white all the way around. War-face, for posturing, for frightening your enemies. But Esther still soothes, and leads him away, one step at a time.

Elijah with a half-smile on his face.

“You’ll stay, brother?” Klaus half-asks, half-begs, lips too red, chin hovering on the edge of a quiver.

Elijah shakes his head, incredulous. “In this cavern? With you? Niklaus. I was never your manservant and I won’t be your companion.” Flickers his eyes lazily over his brother’s partially stooped form. Elijah smiles, and there is no warmth in it. “But I do wish you the very best. You’ve built a lovely home, here.” Voice dripping with sarcasm. “Perhaps you can compel yourself some friends.”

Elijah cocks his chin, and is gone as well.

Klaus waits more than one second, less than two, before rushing into the grand entry hall, from where his family are about to leave.

With a voice that echoes through the foyer like it might a great, empty cavern, Klaus calls out to them.

“You owe me!” he insists. “I kept you safe, kept you close. So that we could be a family again.”

“What is it you feel we owe you?” Elijah asks, intrigued.

Klaus shakes his head. “Love! You owe me your love.”

All incredulous smiles, with one snarling war-face in the middle.

Klaus’ family take their leave, and he is alone again.


	11. (Bonnie/Klaus) Can’t take my eyes off you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by EllenSmithee - prompt by EllenSmithee
> 
> Title from Can't take my eyes off you by Frankie Valli

 

_No one appreciates you like I do._

That's it. Nothing else. Just a single white rose and those words, unsigned. Bonnie tries to pretend she doesn't know who sent it, but she does. It's just like him, to worm out their weaknesses— _her_ weaknesses—to try to divide and conquer. She's not an idiot, though. She and Elena might be having problems right now, but she's not dumb enough to fall for Klaus's feigned sympathy. So she crinkles up the paper and tosses it in the trash. After a brief hesitation, the rose follows.

 

***

 

In the days that come, she sees Klaus everywhere, disappearing down the next aisle when she's at the grocery store, hanging around outside the school to pick up Rebekah, sitting at the bar when she's at the Grill. She watches him constantly, unable to keep her eyes off him, not because she's _interested_ , for God's sake, but she has to study him, to find out what makes him tick, otherwise she'll never be able to defeat him. He seems to be oblivious to her gazes for the most part, but one day at the Grill he looks up and catches her eye, giving her a sweet, almost shy, but at the same time knowing smile before turning away again.

 

"He likes you."

 

"What?" Bonnie drags her eyes away from Klaus and glares at Caroline. "Don't be ridiculous."

 

"I know that look," Caroline says and then she shudders. "Only too well. Is it wrong of me to say better you than me?"

 

" _Yes_ ," Bonnie says with a glare.

 

Caroline shrugs, but looks at least a little guilty. "Sorry." She gets to her feet. "I have to get going, I'm meeting Tyler later."

 

As Caroline leaves, Bonnie finds her eyes drawn to the bar again, but Klaus has returned to his conversation with Kol and doesn't seem to notice when she slips out as well.

 

***

 

She pushes aside her increasingly conflicted feelings and throws herself into the search for a way to kill Klaus, spending hours at the witches' house after school until night falls, poring over the grimoires until the letters and arcane symbols dance before her eyes in bed at night. If only she can find a way to kill him, she thinks, it will all be over and their lives can go back to normal.

_It can never be normal as long as Damon and Stefan are in Mystic Falls_ , a voice in her head pipes up one night, but she ruthlessly vanquishes the traitorous thought. __

One evening as she's leaving the witches' house, he's sitting on the steps, waiting for her. Sighing, she rolls her eyes demonstratively and strolls past him without a word, while he jumps to his feet and falls into pace beside her.

 

"How's your little 'let's kill Klaus' project coming along?" he asks. Her stomach tightens, but she forces herself to remain calm.

 

"Fine," she says in a brisk manner. "Won't be long now till we're rid of you."

 

"Oh, you're right about that, love," he says, his tone light. "I'll be leaving Mystic Falls soon enough. Only not in a casket, I'm afraid. And I won't be the only one who's leaving."

 

She gives him a sharp, quizzical glance, but his eyes are on the ground, a secretive smile playing on his lips.

 

"Why are you doing this?" she asks. "Why are you following me?"

 

She expects him to deny it, to mock her, but his answer takes her off guard.

 

"I don't want anything to happen to you," he says, giving her a sideways glance. His face seems sincere, but Bonnie knows he's just trying to play her.

 

"Nothing will happen to me." Bonnie raises her chin. "The only people who know I come here are Damon and Stefan."

 

"Precisely," Klaus says. Bonnie trips over her feet, and he reaches out to steady her, just for the briefest of moments before he lets go again. A chill of foreboding runs down her spine, and not from his touch.

 

***

 

She tries to talk to Damon and Stefan about it, but they brush off her worries.

 

"Don't sweat it," Damon says with a wry smile. "We'll take care of you. Besides you just have to stay alive long enough to protect Elena."

 

"Damon!" Stefan's voice carries an unspoken warning, but Bonnie can't help but think Stefan is more worried about her reaction to Damon's words than he is shocked by the meaning of the words themselves.

 

"I'm just kidding, sheesh," Damon says after a beat. He glances at Bonnie. "You know that, right, Judgy?"

 

Bonnie forces herself to smile.

 

"Of course," she says.

 

Damon gives her his customary one-sided smirk, but his eyes are calculating and a sudden cold envelops her. Her glance skitters away towards the trees behind Damon and Stefan, and _he's_ standing there, just watching, his body tense as if he could spring into action at a moment's notice. He stays until Damon and Stefan have disappeared into the woods again, and then he gives her a brief nod and follows them, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

 

When she gets out of the bathroom later that night, she finds a piece of paper on her pillow, her window, closed just moments before, now wide open. After wondering only perfunctorily how he got in, she picks up the note and reads it.

_They're lying._

 

Bonnie sighs.

 

"I know," she says out loud. She switches off the light and crawls onto the bed, back against the headboard, her legs drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. Her voice drops to a whisper. "But what choice do I have?"

 

"Life is full of choices, love." She senses rather than sees him approach the bed, feels inevitability rather than surprise at the touch of his hand on her leg. "You just have to make the right one."

 

***

 

"I found it," she tells Damon a week later. She lays out the grimoire in front of him and points to the page. "A spell to rid our town of what ails it."

 

Damon nods without giving the book a second glance. "What do you need us to do?"

 

Bonnie hesitates for a moment, but then he gives her that familiar, _hated_ smirk, and, just like that, it's easy.

 

***

 

In the distance, she can hear sobs, screams, recriminations, but she feels nothing inside, just calm. Then a hand is on her cheek, and aquamarine eyes are boring into hers.

 

"We have to go, love." An arm slides around her, catching her, supporting her as her legs buckle. " _Now_."

 

Instinctively, she clings to him and he whisks her away. And, for the first time since the Salvatores entered her life, Bonnie feels safe.


	12. (Damon/Alaric) Pursuit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by Saltzatore — prompt by PleaseBeKidding

He stumbles, goes down. Doesn't get up.

 _Can't_ get up. __

He tries to draw in a breath, almost gives up because it hurts too bad. His lungs feel like they've been scraped raw by the stinging night air. He tastes blood in his mouth.

He's been running for too long, running without a direction, without knowing where he's going.

 _Run_. __

That's all there is, all he can think of.

_Run. And never stop._

There's a voice in his head, reverberating through his skull, through his mind. Sneering. Unfamiliar.

Cold, hard eyes staring into his, pushing him under so fast and so deep, his body is reacting automatically. He knows he's been compelled— but that knowledge doesn't help him at all, it only adds to the pain he's in.

His body wants to run— needs to obey the order— but he's at the end of his strength, there's nothing left to give, no energy to burn. His legs twitch, feebly, straining to get up, to keep running and it hurts, white, hot needles piercing his skin. He whimpers, doesn't fight to hold it back, doesn't care how pathetic he sounds. There's no one around to hear him anyway.

He doesn't know what happened, all he remembers is waking up from a deep sleep, standing at the side of a road in nothing more but his jeans, a T-shirt and his shoes— and that man, taller than him, a dark frown on his face— and those eyes.

_Run. And never stop._

His lungs cramp and he chokes, fights to get another breath in, moaning at the ice lancing through his chest. If he could, he would stop breathing, it hurts too much.

There are footsteps, getting closer. Slowly. Casually, as if they have all the time in the world. He lifts his head, squints into the darkness— and wants to cry out in relief.

“Ric...”

Damon's voice is low, strained, but it's the best thing he has ever heard.

“Ric, get up...”

He wants to answer him, to say something, tell him how fucking good it is to see him— but he can't, too busy, still, getting enough air into his body.

Damon's still a few feet away from him, but getting closer. Slowly.

Too slow.

“Get up Ric... _Run_...”

He lifts his head off the ground, eyes going wide, body shuddering with the air that's rushing in and out of him. “Wh—at,” he croaks, barely audible.

Damon takes another step closer, grimacing.

“It's Kol— one of the— he's compelled me, Ric— revenge— have to— _kill_ you—”

It becomes obvious, now, that Damon is fighting to hold himself back, body tense and twisted, straining to get away from him.

“Ric, please, get up— _run_!”

 _I can't,_ he wants to say, _can't run anymore, I can't..._

But the words don't come out.

Damon gets closer, still, his eyes pleading with him while the rest his body is poised like a wild cat getting ready to pounce.

He closes his eyes, feels the tension drain out of his body, relaxes onto the cold ground, no longer fighting, no longer scared.

It will be okay.

Damon takes another step closer.

"I'm sorry," he whispers.


	13. (Damon/Katherine) My last remaining vice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By PleaseBeKidding, prompt by PleaseBeKidding

Damon stumbles through the boarding house, drunk on the very last bottle of bourbon. It’s midday, though Damon cares little about such things these days. If he’s awake, that’s good enough to call day, and when he sleeps, it might as well be called the night.

Elena died a week ago not knowing who she was in an aged care hospital in Richmond. The last funeral Damon will ever attend.

Stefan is long dead, torn apart in his moment of redemption by three of the remaining hybrids, thirty – or was it thirty-five? – years ago.

Damon pays no attention to the calendar any more. To be honest, hasn’t paid attention since pancreatic cancer took Alaric in 2047. Took him emaciated and sweating and unable to respond to Damon’s touch on his face.

The rest of Damon’s money bought enough bourbon for him to stay drunk exactly this long.

As Damon careens into his bedroom to collapse onto sheets he hasn’t washed in months, he becomes aware he is not alone. A long-forgotten, or long-suppressed instinct rustles in him like a sleeping bear, and he drags himself to seated.

“Oh, this is really, really… pathetic,” comes Katherine’s voice. “I think I warned you, a really long time ago, about getting mixed up with humans. Didn’t I, Damon? Do you remember?”

“Doing my best to forget,” Damon admits, slurring. “What the hell are you doing here, Katherine?”

“Thought I’d come remind you there are things worth living for.”

Damon snorts, and the action brings bile to his mouth. “You? You think I’m going to clean up my act for a hollowed out shell like you?” He slumps onto his back again.

Katherine cocks her chin. Damon supposes it’s hard to be insulted by someone in such dire straits. Damon has very little dignity left but he’s clinging to it like the last shred of a tattered flag.

Sunlight plays across his skin where he lays sprawled on the bed.

“At the very least, we could have a little fun together,” Katherine purrs, straddling his lean, sculpted form on the bed. “Right after you have a shower.”

Damon laughs drunkenly again.

“So this is all that’s left for me? A drunken hookup with a woman I hate? Just because she’s the last person left in the world who I know?”

“You’re still pretending you hate me? I know you, Damon. Your obsessions don’t fade.”

“I got better obsessions.” Damon tries half heartedly to push Katherine off him.

“Weak. What have you been drinking? Other than shitty bourbon?”

Damon lets his eyes flutter closed as Katherine begins to mouth her way up his jaw. “Maybe it’s good. That we’re here again,” he says. “Damon and Katherine back in bed at the end of the world.”

Katherine looks pleased. “And why’s that?” she asks, unbuttoning his shirt with nimble fingers.

“Because there’s one thing I always wanted a chance to do… and thought I never would.” Slate silver eyes, as quick as ever, and Damon can sense Katherine’s interest, smell her arousal. Lets his hand explore her breasts one more time, slips one hand to her throat, tangling subtle fingers in the chain she wears.

“Yeah?” Voice low and husky. “I’m open to suggestions.”

“This isn’t a suggestion,” Damon says, clarity returning like a bright beacon, as he tears the chain from her throat, tears his own ring from his finger, and with twinned shrieks, they both begin to burn.


	14. (Alaric/Klaus) When I call you, you must go where I lead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By EllenSmithee, prompt by Saltzatore
> 
> Title from Original Sin from the musical, Tanz Der Vampire

It starts as a prickling under his skin, ever present, but he ignores it, determined, as he always is, not to respond this time. Then, if he concentrates, he thinks he can hear someone calling in the distance, barely audible, just out of earshot, but _there_ , waiting for him to come.

Just when he thinks he's won this time, his own body betrays him, taking over as if it has a mind of its own. It drags him, kicking and screaming on the inside, to his master.

 

"Why do you always resist?" Klaus asks, smiling, his voice amused, but his eyes cold and dark. "You know my blood will always bring you back to me."

 

He lays his hands on Alaric, and Alaric's eyes fall closed, giving in to the feeling at last. _Home._


	15. (Damon/Andie + Alaric) On the outside looking in (Art post)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By Saltzatore -- prompt by Ellensmithee

*Art Post*

 


	16. (Damon/Alaric) Some say love, it is a hunger, an endless, aching need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By PleaseBeKidding – Prompt by Saltzatore
> 
> Title from The Rose by Bette Midler

Damon Salvatore and Alaric Saltzman have been sleeping together – no, they’ve been in a relationship – nearly eight months, when Alaric realises Damon’s never actually done this before; and more than this, that it actually scares him to death.

Damon is aggressive and enthusiastic and altogether delighted by the turn of events, yes; but caring about someone who cares back is freaking him out completely. So much so that Alaric is reminded of high school, of early, fumbling romances, of teeth hitting teeth. When Damon is feeling insecure, he picks a fight. If Alaric spends too long talking to someone else at a party or at the Grill Damon turns into the possessive, sulky boyfriend who wants to go home early.

When Alaric is exhausted, needs a night off sex for his weak, human body to heal, Damon goes quiet. Schools his features to nonchalant and won’t make eye contact, rising like a cat to stalk away.

Alaric grabs Damon’s shoulder. “You can stay,” he promises. “You just have to let me sleep.”

“Why stay, if all you want to do is sleep?” comes the irritable reply, shrugging Alaric away.

They’ve shared this exchange a dozen times in four months before Alaric realises that Damon’s worried that every minute not spent having gymnastic sex is a minute Alaric might spend losing interest.

So one night, Alaric arrives at the boarding house exhausted and in need of sleep, and crawls into bed next to Damon. When Damon purrs in delight, pulling at Alaric’s clothes, Alaric pulls him into his arms, holds him down, holds him still.

“Not tonight,” he grunts. “Need sleep.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Damon grumbles.

“Sleeping. Or I will be, when you shut up.” Holds Damon in his big hands, knowing Damon’s struggling is all for show. “So shut up.”

“Ric. Go. Away,” Damon says, pushing him.

“Damon,” Alaric says, right up against Damon’s mouth. “’m not. Going. Anywhere.” Alaric relaxes against the mattress, feels Damon relax along with him, feels his breath bounce back off Damon’s skin, their faces so close together. Damon runs his fingers over Alaric’s chest, the barest flutter, and lets himself be held. 


	17. (Alaric/Klaus) Don't leave me alone in this bed.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by EllenSmithee, prompt by Saltzatore
> 
> Title from Alone in this bed by Framing Hanley

"Bastard," Alaric snarls as his hands twist in the vervain-soaked ropes. A slow smile slithers across Klaus's face, never reaching his eyes, and Alaric's stomach lurches. Klaus kneels on the bed between Alaric's legs, and Alaric's feeling of dread just intensifies. He kicks out, but Klaus grabs his legs easily, pushing them apart. Alaric cries out as Klaus sinks his teeth into Alaric's inner thigh, injecting his poison directly into Alaric's body.

Then Klaus is gone, leaving Alaric alone in the bed, maybe even alone in the house. Alaric struggles weakly against the bonds as the hybrid's poison slides through his veins, making him moan and squirm till his fangs elongate and he's calling and begging for Klaus to return and put him out of his misery.

 

As much as he hates Klaus, Alaric needs him, too. With everyone gone, Klaus is all he has left, just as he's all Klaus has left. But, maybe someday, Klaus won't be back in time. And maybe that someday is today.


	18. (Damon/Katherine) Kiss me, Katherine! (Art post)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by Saltzatore, prompt by EllenSmithee
> 
> Title from Kiss me, Katherine by Franz Ferdinand

*Art Post*

 


	19. (Damon/Alaric) Still drunk, still crazy, still blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By pleasbekidding – prompt by EllenSmithee
> 
> Title from Still drunk, still crazy, still blue by Scott H Biram

Damon takes a booth, and usually, he doesn’t. Likes to be at the bar, the centre of everything, watching, watched. Tonight he needs to think. And drink until he can’t think any more.

 _Women_ , he thinks, and wishes there was someone to listen to him. Tops his glass up with the bottle he compelled from the bartender.

Alaric slumps through the door, looking tense and unhappy. Takes a seat at the bar and orders a drink. He doesn’t look comfortable. He looks like he’s wearing the wrong skin, like someone rearranged his life overnight.

He sits for a few minutes, turning his glass in his hand, and then abruptly, climbs down from the stool. Scans the room, looking for a dark corner or an empty booth.

Damon raises a hand in greeting.

Alaric tenses, nodding his acknowledgement, and continues to scan for somewhere to sit. There’s nowhere.

Damon raises his hand. An invitation, one he hopes doesn’t look desperate. Alaric scans the room one final time, and then ambles to Damon’s booth. Sits without a word.

When his glass is empty, Damon tops it up. Alaric nods.

It’s a silent hour.

Finally, Damon speaks. “Women,” he says.

“Women,” Alaric agrees. He’s not yet slurring but Damon has compelled a second bottle and Alaric is drinking quite quickly. Has a tendency to forget to eat when he’s miserable. Is getting slowly sloppier.

Damon can’t help it; watches Alaric’s face, searching for clues. “So. Isobel? Jenna?”

Alaric growls. “The lot of them,” he says. “They always want something you can’t give them.” Doesn’t look up. Warms the bourbon, holding the glass in both hands.

Damon finds himself studying Alaric’s hands. Strong hands, big hands. Shaking just a little. Damon tops up his glass again.

It’s weird and unexpected but it spills from Damon’s lips regardless. “Are you alright?”

Alaric shoots him an incredulous look and throws back his drink, pushing the empty glass towards Damon for another refill.

After a minute, or more, he finally answers. “No,” he admits. “I’m out of my fucking mind.” Throws back that drink too, and starts to slide out of the booth, perhaps stumbling a little.

Damon doesn’t care. It’s a good look for Alaric.

Alaric draws himself upright, putting a hand out against the back of the seat.

“You coming?” he asks.

With a low smile and bright, daring eyes, Damon follows him out of the Grill.

 


	20. (Elena) This wasn't supposed to be a weapon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by EllenSmithee -- prompt by PleaseBeKidding

It's amazing what modern science can do nowadays. A long dead girl, the last of her line, now brought to life from a few cells in a petri dish. Dark locks, large eyes, delicate lips - a picture of innocence that belies the poison in her veins, engineered to kill where spells and white oak stakes once failed.

He plants her in a cafe his brother is known to frequent and waits. It isn't long before he sees her, a hothouse flower in a field of daisies, ready to be plucked, and curiosity wins over caution, sending him to his doom.

 


	21. (Damon/Alaric) I wish I knew what you were looking for

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by Saltzatore -- prompt by PleaseBeKidding
> 
> Title from Under the Milky Way Tonight by The Church

Alaric has changed.

Ten years. The blink of an eye for Damon—and yet they have left their marks on his friend, streaks of grey in his hair, in the stubble on his cheeks. He’s moving differently, slower, but you probably wouldn’t notice it without enhanced vampire sight.

His eyes are the same, though, dark and wide, surprised at first, then carefully guarded.

Alaric tries a smile, but he’s not terribly convincing.

“Damon.”

Ten years ago, Damon would have pushed him aside, walked inside, walked by him—or thrown him against the wall—his favorite approach to the more interesting sex-adventures that usually followed.

He doesn’t, now. He stays where he is, in front of the door, putting what he hopes is his usual smirk on his lips.

“Ric, long time no see.”

Alaric has never been able to hide his feelings from him, at least not very well; Damon has always been able to pick up something, even if it was just an elevated heartbeat or a hitch in his breathing. Right now, Ric is fighting to hold it together and not punch him.

Which, in all fairness, is what he might deserve.

“What do you want, Damon?”

“Well, for starters… how about you invite me in?”

Not that he needs to be invited in, it’s still the same place, Alaric hasn’t moved, hasn’t left Mystic Falls in all those years, not even for a holiday. Damon knows, he’s been keeping tabs on him.

But he doesn’t force his way in, he remains standing in the hallway. And tries not to flinch when Alaric shakes his head.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Damon.”

Fair enough.

Damon nods, takes a step back, tries a smile, figures it looks more like a grimace. “I just want to talk.”

“I don’t think we have anything to talk about.”

Damon knows, outside his line of sight, behind the door, Alaric is gripping the doorknob so hard his knuckles are turning white, but the part of his body that he can see remains purposefully relaxed.

He looks at his friend, for a long time and feels his resolve strengthen, it’s ridiculously hard, but he’s going to see this through.

“Listen, Ric, back then... I didn’t know what I wanted. And it took me a long time to-- I know what I want. Now.”

Alaric’s face doesn’t give anything away. “Do you?”

He nods, solemn. Realizes his hands are shaking. “Yes. I do. You, Ric. I want you.”

Alaric shifts, his eyes hard, a frown building on his brow. “I know what happened, Damon, I was there.”

“What?”

“I was on her wedding, I led her down the aisle… Elena’s married now, she’s happy—and now… _now_ you suddenly know what you want?”

For a moment, Damon is surprised, doesn’t know what Alaric his talking about, can’t keep the confusion from his face-- but then he gets it.

Alaric has it all wrong. Damon straightens, holds up his hands, needs him to stop talking.

“Ric—”

“I can’t do this, Damon, I don’t want to do this again. I’m too old for this.”

“Alaric—”

Alaric shakes his head. “No, Damon. I can’t—I won’t let you do this to me anymore, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering if you really want me—or if I’m just a replacement until you go back to pining over Elena.”

Okay, he deserves this, all of this, all the hurt in Alaric’s voice, all the barely controlled misery in his eyes, he deserves this. And more.

“I don’t want to be second best to her forever, Damon, I won’t.”

But he has it all wrong. All wrong.

“Alaric, listen to me—”

Alaric takes a step back, apparently does not want to listen to him.

“Goodbye, Damon.”

Damon is fast enough to put his foot in the open door so that it can’t close completely. Alaric is hidden from his sight now, behind the door, but he can feel him tense.

“Ric, listen, okay? I didn’t know she is married. I—” He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. “I didn’t... I haven’t seen her since I left. Not once. I haven’t phoned her. I...” Another deep breath. This is hard. So much harder than he thought. “I haven’t really thought about her... a lot...”

There is silence on the other side of the door, but he can hear Alaric’s heart race, like it’s trying to beat its way out of his chest.

“I’m here... for you, Ric. Because I want you... because I need you. I’ve missed you. You, not her.”

Still silence, Alaric doesn’t move, at all.

“Ric...”

The words are gone. He’s had them all laid out, had prepared a speech, knew exactly what he wanted to say, what he needed Alaric to hear— but it’s all gone now.

And suddenly Alaric is not the only one whose heart is racing.

 

-the end-

-yes, this _is_ the end-


	22. (Damon/Alaric) I don’t think he is going to stay, I don’t think he can stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by PleaseBeKidding -- prompt by PleaseBeKidding

The peculiar but encompassing romance of Alaric Saltzman and Damon Salvatore was always going to end in death. That much was clear long before they stopped pretending it was just sex. Not for them the hurt feelings that so often marks the end of an affair, no slow decay of shared interests. Neither would ever cross his arms and say to the other, “you just don’t do it for me any more.”

Alaric had always seemed to like being human, so Elena pictured Damon looking after an old man ravaged with Alzheimer’s and unable to recognise his lover, and the thought made her sad.

Though she often wondered if it wasn’t a little optimistic. As long as they all stayed in Mystic Falls, Alaric’s death seemed more likely to occur via exsanguination once some clever monster thought to cut his hand off, and with it, his ring.

Both options were effectively disposed of when Alaric and Damon disappeared for a long weekend somewhere, somewhere with snow and mulled… wine and other things, and roaring fireplaces and snow angels. When they came back, smelling like wood smoke and each other, Alaric, always strong and earthy, moved with more feline grace.

He’d arrived at the Gilbert house and with a nod, asked Elena to invite him inside, and she’d extended the invitation. The last one he’d need. Unable to choose between hugging him and crying, she’d done both. He’d poured wine and smiled and promised her he’d been the one to decide, in the end.

“Not many people get to say ‘forever’ and mean it, ’Lena,” he’d said, and she’d nodded, missing Stefan more intensely than she had in months.

Death separates us all in the end but Damon and Alaric were vampires both, so the end could have been, _should_ have been hundreds of years and millions of bottles of bourbon into the future. It shouldn’t have been six months into their assured eternity and it shouldn’t have been an angry young vampire and a case of mistaken identity that tore them apart.

 

Six months since Alaric’s turning they held a strange funeral. The body buried deep in a hole near the place where witches had once burned. The mourners, unable to meet each others’ eyes. The sun on everyone’s tongues, when it should have been raining and dark.

The lone man standing by the hole they knew he would be the one to fill in, unaided.

Jeremy wrapped his arms around his grieving sister. “Shh, Elena.”

She sobbed no more quietly than she had been.

(The stooped figure by the hole.)

“I don’t think he’s going to stay,” Elena sobbed.

“I don’t think he _can_ stay,” Jeremy admitted.

“Not even for us?”

Jeremy hesitated. “They did what they could for us. More than most people would have. We’re not kids any more, sis.” He rubbed reassuring circles into Elena’s shoulders. “And we’re the safest we’ve ever been. We don’t need him like that, not any more.”

 _Speak for yourself,_ Elena thought, but didn’t say.

 

Jeremy and Elena waited for a long time, after everyone else left. They stood a long way back and stayed until the hole was full and Alaric stood numb by the grave. At last Jeremy clamped a hand on his guardian’s shoulder and turned to walk away.

Elena was more tentative.

“Can I stay?” she asked

Alaric shook his head. “I’m staying until the sun comes up and then I’m throwing this stupid day ring as far as I can. I don’t want you to see that.”

Elena snaked a hand around Alaric’s waist to give him the last hug she ever would. Bit back tears she didn’t want him to feel bad about. From her bag, she pulled a bottle of Alaric and Damon’s favourite bourbon, laying it at his feet like a benediction and walking away.

 

In the morning the sky over Mystic Falls tasted like ashes.


	23. (Alaric/Klaus) lost and found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by EllenSmithee -- prompt by Saltzatore

When Klaus dies, it's like every cell in Alaric's body rebels at once, his blood—Klaus's blood in his veins—burns like fire and acid, and Alaric is sure he's going to die this time, the bond with Klaus dragging him to a true death at long last. As his blood calms, however, the loss of Klaus himself is more acute, the broken bond leaving a gaping emptiness behind.

Alaric stumbles away from the scene, Klaus's twisted body and his sister's wails. When he gets home, he curls up on the couch, willing the pain to go away. Alaric hated the man and everything he'd done to Alaric and his friends, but he _needed_ Klaus, too. Now Alaric's lost, completely and utterly lost, and he doesn't know how to even start finding his way.

 

Then there's a knock at the door and Damon is on the other side, holding a bottle of Alaric's favorite bourbon.

 

"Thought you'd be needing this," he said, his smirk sliding into place, but not fast enough to hide his concern. And just like that, Alaric knows it'll be okay.

 


	24. (Alaric/Klaus) Baby, it’s cold outside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by Saltzatore -- prompt by EllenSmithee
> 
> Title from Baby, it’s cold outside by Frank Loesser

It’s cold, so cold. It’s never been so cold.

He’s shivering-- _shaking_ so hard his teeth rattle, so hard he can barely catch a breath. Everything hurts, fire and ice racing through his veins, setting each limb on fire and, at the same time, freezing them. He can’t move, can’t even open his eyes to see where he is, why it is is so cold.

There’s a hand on his brow, patting him. It’s probably meant to be soothing, but it isn’t, every touch sends another shiver through him. The hand is ice-cold.

He tries to form words, tries to get something out from between his teeth, but it’s impossible, his lungs are frozen.

And there is something else. Something is wrong. So wrong he can taste it on his tongue, feel it in every breath he chokes on. _He_ is wrong.

“Finally.”

The voice is close to him, whispering into his ear, so low he barely understands it.

“I was beginning to think the blood wasn’t strong enough.”

His head is tipped back, a cold hand pries his mouth open-- and he’s drowning. Cold liquid is poured down his throat, so fast and so much he starts choking, starts panicking. He coughs, fighting to bring it up, to turn his head to the side and spit it out-- but he can’t move, someone has a grip on him that is just too strong.

“Drink, just swallow, don’t fight.”

He is too weak to struggle, to protest, and so he gives in, swallows as best as he can. As soon as the cold liquid hits his stomach his senses flare to life and his body convulses, wringing a strangled groan from his throat.

“Relax, mate, you’ll feel better soon.”

He feels the strength return to his body... and opens his eyes.

Blue eyes are watching him, a satisfied smirk twisting familiar lips at their corners.

“We are going to have a lot of fun.”

He watches, dazedly, as the blond man winks at him and then gets up from the bed he’s resting on, calling over his shoulder.

“Come out to meet the others whenever you’re ready.”

Somehow he knows he will never be warm again.

 


	25. (Damon/Alaric + Elijah) Imbalance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By PleaseBeKidding - prompt by PleaseBeKidding

This thing with Elijah, it’s complicated. When he enters a room both Alaric and Damon tense like there’s a new scent on the air, and they can barely look at each other, let alone at Elijah. He nods his head just barely, bringing his chin across in a slight diagonal Damon finds himself unconsciously imitating. When he does it, this elegant mimic, Alaric steps him into a wall, tears at his shirt.

Elijah shakes hands low and close to his own hip, forcing Damon to reach across a chasm to grasp it. Across the room Alaric watches, watchful, eyelids thickening. His blood runs a little hotter. Someone is speaking to him – John Gilbert? – prattling about the ring, and it occurs to Alaric that John Gilbert’s neck would make a lovely gift for Elijah. He closes his eyes against the temptation.

Pulling over on the highway because they wait until they get back to the boarding house Damon and Alaric tear into each other on the back seat of Alaric’s truck.

Afterwards they lie together and carefully avoid talking about Elijah.

But later, after drinks, after too much drinking, Damon puts voice to it.

“He’s fucking everything up.”

Alaric nods, doesn’t meet Damon’s eye.

“You and me, we balance. He’s…”

Alaric sighs. “Making us wonky?”

Damon snickers. Crosses to the fire. “Wonky. Apt.” He absently rearranges coals with a poker.

Alaric leans back. “We have to get rid of him.”

“Or…” Damon grins, lascivious.

Alaric shakes his head. “No. No way. Not after the Mason Lockwood debacle.”

“Could be fun.”

“Or you could end up sitting next to my dead body for two hours while Elijah makes that irritating face.”

“What’s his irritating face?” Damon catalogues Elijah’s expression. Amused. Enraged. _Really_ enraged.

“The one I keep wanting to lick.” Alaric puts his face in his hands.

Damon pokes the coals some more.

Elijah never pushes either of them, never says anything overt. Just talks too close and stands too close and doesn’t acknowledge what is happening. He just pretends.

Later, lying on Damon’s improbably large bed, satisfied but not quite satisfied enough, Damon shakes his head. “I want our balance back.”

Alaric agrees. “So we use the dagger. That’s all we can do, right?”

Damon says nothing.

“Right?” Alaric shifts himself up onto one elbow. “Damon.”

“The dagger, then,” and in the end, that’s why they did it.

 


	26. (Alaric) my eyes are like a shadow on you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> by EllenSmithee - prompt by Saltzatore
> 
> Title from Original Sin from the musical, Tanz Der Vampire

Alaric feels it long before he sees anything. Like someone is always just out of sight, lurking. Waiting. A constant tension, like something could happen at any moment.

 

Then come the glimpses. At first just a shadow, almost beyond his range of vision. He'll turn around just in time to see someone disappearing around the corner. He'll go out to his car after work and see someone off in the distance, watching. Only when he turns to look, he's always alone. Someone _is_  there - or maybe not. It's the killer, he thinks; no, he _knows_ —who else would it be? The first attempt to kill Alaric failed, so it stands to reason that he'd try again.

 

Then the dreams start. Someone is in his head, ever-present, talking, foreign, but oddly familiar. It sounds like the German his Omi used to speak, but softer, and he strains to understand the words, but it's just a jumble of garbled sounds, their meaning always just out of his reach. The intent, however, it clear—whoever, _whatever_ it is wants Alaric. So Alaric checks and double-checks his vervain supply to make sure it's intact, but still the dreams come. He drinks coffee at night, spiked with vervain, trying to stave off asleep, when he falls victim to his own mind. But he's always out cold by midnight, no matter what.

 

One night, he wakes up and is certain that someone's at the end of his bed, watching him. But when he switches on the light, the room is empty, the curtains swaying gently in the breeze. It is only when he's drifting off again that he remembers there is no wind. He's awake the rest of the night, staring into the shadows, _wiling_ them to move.

 

He wonders if it's Damon. Neither of them have never spoken about this odd, almost _sexual_   thing between them, and he expects Damon never will as long as Elena is there. Besides, Alaric doesn't want the complication of Damon in his life; his friend is like Isobel in a way--too many ways--and he doesn't think he has the energy for that right now. So instead he focuses on Meredith, pretending he can find his salvation in her while attempting to ignore Damon's digs and attempts to tear them apart, as if he doesn't want Alaric for himself, but he doesn't want _her_ to have Alaric either.

 

One night, he dies again. He's out in the woods with Damon and Meredith, on the trail of the killer, who's just killed two council members and gravely injured Carol while somehow escaping without a trace, when suddenly he's hit, a wooden crossbow bolt to the chest. He grasps the bolt and tries to pull it out of his chest, his bloody fingers sliding over the wood he carved himself, and he's dead before they reach the end of the bolt.

 

When he comes too, he's in the hospital again, his chest still bandaged. The killer escaped, Damon says, glaring at Meredith as she injects his blood into Alaric's arm. Damon licks his lips unconsciously as he watches and Alaric's gaze is drawn to Damon's mouth. He suddenly regrets that he'd insisted he take Damon's blood this way instead of drinking directly from the source.

 

Later, Bonnie comes by the hospital and examines the ring.

 

"Fix it," Damon says with a scowl.

 

"There's nothing _wrong_ with it," Bonnie says, irritation slipping into her voice. When she turns back to Alaric, however, she gives him an apologetic smile as she hands him the ring. "Sorry, Alaric. The magic is intact. The ring seems to be working fine. I don't know why it won't work for you anymore."

 

*          

 

He returns home later in the day, unable to shake the dread that fills him. Is the killer still following him? And what's happening with his ring? He sits in front of the television after Elena goes to bed, drinking himself into a stupor. There are no dreams that night.

 

The next evening, he meets Damon at the Grill. He can tell his friend is worried, but he doesn't know what to say. Still hungover from the night before, Alaric sticks with coffee. When he says goodnight, he decides to check his weapons at the loft before he goes back to the Gilberts'. He drives up and makes his way up to his empty apartment, letting himself in. He stands in the dark for a moment, realizing as he reaches for the light, that he's just made a terrible mistake.

 

Before his hand can reach the switch, he's pushed against the door, slamming it shut in the process. He tenses to fight, to flee, but a hard body is holding him still, unrelenting and unmovable.

 

"Oh, you're not goin' anywhere, mate," a familiar voice purrs in his ear. "And don't worry, I can fix your little problem. But I'll be taking this first."

 

Before Alaric can react, Klaus tears off Alaric's ring, almost taking Alaric's finger with it, and then there are hands on his throat, squeezing, and everything goes black.

 

End of Part 1

 


	27. (Damon/Alaric) Don’t say it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By Saltzatore - Prompt by PleaseBeKidding

Alaric never comes to the boarding house after a full moon.

He doesn’t go to the Gilbert’s house either, prefers the solitude of his own apartment after those nights. Which doesn’t make a lot of sense, since that’s where it all began all those years ago.

In the beginning, when they had just got together and were all over each other at any given opportunity, Damon had tried to hold him back, had tried to keep him in the house. He’d even locked Ric into the dungeon for three nights in a row. Had told himself he would be strong enough, this time, to stand the cries, the moans, the begging—and the silence. The sudden, all-encompassing, deafening silence that had told him Alaric had lost the fight. Again. Had lost himself in whatever hallucinations his mind came up with.

They don’t know how it works, how it can hold so much power over him.

The blood.

Klaus’s blood.

The blood that had enabled Klaus to possess Alaric’s body and had formed a bond between them, similar like the bond Tyler has. Only, Alaric isn’t a hybrid, isn’t even a werewolf, is just himself, a scruffy vampire-hunting history teacher who drinks too much and sleeps with Damon Salvatore.

Who is drawn to Klaus’s side for three nights during every full moon.

Sometimes Damon waits for him, sitting in the dark room, on the bed, as still as a statue. Waiting. Until the familiar heartbeat enters the building.

Sometimes Alaric sends him away, can’t stand to be touched.

Sometimes he presses so hard against him it feels like he is trying to crawl inside Damon’s skin.

Alaric never smells of sex when he gets back. Oh, Damon can smell Klaus on him—all over him, but that’s it. Alaric also never talks about what happens. The only thing he will say, over and over again, is “I’m sorry”.

For what, Damon has no idea.

Doesn’t want to find out anymore, only wants him to shut up, just be quiet so he—they can forget about it for the rest of the days.

Until it will happen again.


	28. (Damon/Alaric) I hunt for you with bloody feet across the hallow'd ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By PleaseBeKidding - prompt by Saltzatore
> 
> Title from Howl by Florence and the Machines

When he heard the knock on the door Alaric didn’t hesitate to open it. It had been five years since he would have activated the external security cameras first. Six years since he would have simply hidden. Four, perhaps, since he would have started shaking the second he heard the knock.

At least three since he would have checked the peephole, even. He has become incautious.

“Damon,” he says when he opens the door, and Damon it is indeed. And because he doesn’t trust his traitor body any more than he did in 2011 Alaric keeps his eyes averted. “What are you doing here?”

Damon can’t move, doesn’t speak, for a long beat.

“Ric,” he says at last. “You’re alive.”

Alaric wants to slam the door in his face and wants to invite him inside and make love on the couch and wants to run, run hundreds of miles in any direction that doesn’t have Damon in it.

And he wants to go back in time and not move to Mystic Falls and back further so he never even met Isobel. And he also doesn’t, so he keeps his eyes averted.

“Are you going to invite me in?”

Damon is all cautious cool.

“N-no,” Alaric answers.

“Great. We’re already moving onto threats. I can threaten to eat your neighbours or I can threaten to go out in the street and eat randoms. Pick one, and then invite me in.”

“Come in, Damon,” Alaric answers, though he doesn’t believe the threat. Not now. Damon steps inside.

Alaric crosses the room and with his hands shaking so badly it’s humiliating he pours two mugs of bourbon. “I assume your tastes haven’t change,” he says, and Damon actually rolls his eyes.

“No. Still hate what I’ve always hated, still love what I loved when you knew me. Fuck, Alaric, how could you just… We thought you were abducted! We thought you’d been killed.”

Alaric slams the bottle down but by some miracle it doesn’t break. “I was. I was abducted. I listened to Elena die. I listened for weeks to Elena dying. Weeks, Damon. I was gone a whole year and then one day I woke up emaciated on the highway between Tucson and the San Tan Valley with nothing but the clothes I was taken in. And I swore I was done with vampires. Forever.” And he’s shaking now. “And I was killed. I was killed plenty. Don’t know why… no one ever thought to take my ring off.”

Damon doesn’t move, doesn’t shift. Can’t say a word. Stares miserably at his toes and takes it in. Alaric wonders how much anyone really knows, of what happened to him, to Elena. To poor Caroline, even, torn literally in half trying to protect them. To Tyler, when the effort of resisting the sire bond caused him to literally stroke out.

“Why would you come here?”

And Alaric grips the edge of the kitchen table, trying to hold himself together, trying to hold himself up.

“I said why -”

“You know why,” Damon insists. “You know. I told you back then. I love you, Ric.”

“You love _Stefan_ ,” Alaric corrects. “You love nothing in this world as much as you love Stefan. You chose your brother over the rest of us, and everyone paid, Damon. Elena paid for weeks, before she died. I listened to her pay. _For weeks_.”

Damon closes his eyes against the image and Alaric wishes it was as easy to erase beautiful Elena’s screams. He’d never forgive himself for the day she died. He collapsed, weeping, on the stone floor, onto the stains left by his own blood, grateful she was gone, so he couldn’t fail her any more.

Damon bristles, false bravado. “Yeah, well, he’s dead now. He’s been dead eight years. I’ve been looking for you _since I killed him_.” Damon’s voice oscillates from angry to exhausted and he doesn’t move to go closer, he just stands. He stands there like it’s 2011 and the world hasn’t ended yet. “I’ve been looking for you, for your body, at least. And you’ve been _here_? Mr Richard Salt?”

And it is now that Damon’s voice starts to waver.

“And I hate to remind you but if you’d let me turn you, back then, you maybe could have protected yourself, could have protected Elena. So don’t talk like _I’m_ the one who didn’t care.”

And still Damon stands just inside the door and doesn’t move. Alaric slumps into a couch. Damon crosses his arms.

“I’m…”

Alaric feels the treacherous tremble in his arms and vows it’s the most emotion he’ll show.

Damon takes a step closer.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Damon admits, soft. “I blame myself, no one but myself. For what it’s worth…” he rubs his eyes, near helpless with exhaustion. “I dug Elena’s grave by hand.”

Alaric feels tears burn his eyes. “You found her?”

“They left her body on Bonnie’s doorstep.”

Alaric feels himself cool. “Bonnie. Jesus. Is she -”

“Couple years intensive inpatient psychiatric care, and then rehab. She’s still heavily medicated. She has no magic any more and that’s the way she likes it.”

“You see her?”

Damon nods. “I bought her a house, I pay her expenses. She’s not… she’ll never…”

Alaric closes his eyes. “Jesus, Damon.” What else can he say?

“Jeremy lives with her. He…” Damon closes his eyes. “He’s a good kid, always been a good kid.”

Jeremy must be twenty six, and he hasn’t been a ‘kid’ by any real definition in over a decade, but Alaric doesn’t give the thought a voice.

They are a long time silent, but Alaric feels Damon’s eyes weigh heavily upon him. “Have you…”

Alaric forces himself to look up.

“Have you thought about me? At all? … Missed me? Even a little?” Damon’s face is twisted into something terrible that Alaric can neither name nor describe.

“Of course I have.” No point in lying, but it still feels cruel to admit it out loud. “You know I have.”

And then Damon is right there, crouched in front of the couch, and his hands are on Alaric’s thighs.

“I looked for you. I looked everywhere.”

Like Alaric was a book. Like he was the spare bulb for the refrigerator that you are sure you saw, just last year. Like he was misplaced. Alaric nods. “I’m sure you did.” He nods again, maybe a little manic. “I believe you. I do.”

“Does it count for anything, that I found you?”

Alaric has always been an honest man. “Maybe,” he says.

He doesn’t resist when Damon’s hands find his face.

“I have nothing left,” Damon admits. “I had looking for you. Now I’ve found you, that’s it. Nothing left. Don’t make me go,” and he’s not begging, because Damon doesn’t beg. “Don’t,” he says again, and Alaric feels firm lips pressed against his own, the first time he’s been kissed in nine years and Damon still tastes like Damon, and his lips are still so perfect, but Alaric is old, now, surely too old, and Damon should want to run, but instead, he kisses Alaric some more.

“Can I stay?”

So, maybe, Damon begs, a little, when he must.

In answer, Alaric kisses him silent.


End file.
